101 Uplifting Quotes About Changes in Life
Quotes about change, transformation, trying new things and taking chances.
Change is inevitable. Sometimes change comes at you hard and fast, and other times it's a gradual shift. There can be a significant transformation from one major event, or over time, you realize things have evolved. These changes can be positive and necessary, or less than ideal at the time—but there's almost always a silver lining.
Of course, dealing with change is rarely easy. Many of us would like to avoid the pain that may come from growing apart from someone or experiencing difficult personal growth in general. Many of us would like to skip over the stressful part of starting something new (like a job) or the awkwardness of experiencing an altered relationship, and get to the place where we're already familiar with the new environment, updated friendship dynamics, etc. But there is joy in the process!
These uplifting quotes about change are all about transformation, trying new things and taking chances. If you could use a little help making sense of a confusing, tumultuous time or staying motivated amid a major upheaval, check out these 101 quotes about change that'll encourage you to see the good side of things and stay inspired!
101 Quotes About Change
1. “Change, like healing, takes time.” ― Veronica Roth
2. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? - Hillel
3. “Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn't stop for anybody.” – Stephen Chbosky
4. “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” ― Leo Tolstoy
5. “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” ― George Bernard Shaw
6. “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” ― Mother Teresa
7. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” ― Barack Obama
8. “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ― Albert Einstein
9. “To change one’s life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions.” ― William James
10. “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Rumi
11. “I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better” - Plutarch
12. “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” ― Mary Shelley
13. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ― Lao Tzu
14. “Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't.” - Steve Maraboli
15. “I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back....” ― Erica Jong
16. “We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.” ― Walter Mosley
17. “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” ― Wayne W. Dyer
18. “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
19. “You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
20. “And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.” ― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
Related: Quotes About Life
21. “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.” ― Eckhart Tolle
22. “Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.” ― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
23. “Believe something and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you've changed, by believing. Once you've changed, other things start to follow. Isn't that the way it works?” ― Diane Duane
24. “Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses, and start making changes.” ― Roy T. Bennett
25. “Fashion changes, but style endures.” ― Coco Chanel
26. “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― Buckminster Fuller
27. “You cannot change what you are, only what you do.” ― Philip Pullman
28. "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. - John Kenneth Galbraith
29. “Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.” ― Stephen King, The Green Mile
30. “No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you've come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.” ― Madonna
31. “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” – Karl Marx
32. “I find the best way to love someone is not to change them, but instead, help them reveal the greatest version of themselves.” ― Steve Maraboli
33. “All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
God is Change.” ― Octavia E. Butler
34. “Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change.” ― Shannon L. Alder
35. “Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn't change the heart of others-- it only changes yours.” ― Shannon Alder
36. "If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change." — John A. Simone, Sr.
37. “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” ― Malala Yousafzai
38. “When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can't make them change if they don't want to, just like when they do want to, you can't stop them.” ― Andy Warhol
39. “No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't.” ― Stephen King, The Stand
40. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” ― Brene Brown
41. “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” ― Winston S. Churchill
42. “Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ” ― William S. Burroughs
43. “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ― Haruki Murakami
44. “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” ― Steve Jobs
45. “I give you this to take with you: Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” ― Judith Minty
46. “A bend in the road is not the end of the road… Unless you fail to make the turn.” ― Helen Keller
47. “Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
48. “Change may not always bring growth, but there is no growth without change.” ― Roy T. Bennett
49. “True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” ― Leo Tolstoy
50. “Change begins at the end of your comfort zone.” ― Roy T. Bennett
51. “Change is the end result of all true learning.” ― Leo Buscaglia
52. “Our ability to adapt is amazing. Our ability to change isn't quite as spectacular.” ― Lisa Lutz
53. “Changing is what people do when they have no options left.” ― Holly Black
54. “To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.” ― Stephen R. Covey
55. “Nothing is lost . . . Everything is transformed.” ― Michael Ende
56. “The changes we dread most may contain our salvation.” ― Barbara Kingsolver
57. “If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.” ― Katherine Hepburn
58. “It's not that some people have willpower and some don't... It's that some people are ready to change and others are not.” ― James Gordon
59. “You tried to change didn’t you? Closed your mouth more, tried to be softer, prettier, less volatile, less awake... You can’t make homes out of human beings. Someone should have already told you that.” ― Warsan Shire
60. "Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while." — Kin Hubbard
Related: Quotes About Happiness
61. “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” ― Norman Vincent Peale
62. “Nothing endures but change.” ― Heraclitus
63. “The past can teach us, nurture us, but it cannot sustain us. The essence of life is change, and we must move ever forward or the soul will wither and die.” ― Susanna Kearsley
64. “Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.” ― Alain de Botton
65. "If you want to make enemies, try to change something." - Woodrow Wilson
66. "The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions." - Ellen Glasgow
67. "People are very open-minded about new things, as long as they're exactly like the old ones." - Charles F. Kettering
68. “The great growling engine of change – technology.” – Alvin Toffler
69. "Folks, I don’t trust children. They’re here to replace us.” – Stephen Colbert
70. “No matter what people will tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” – Robin Williams
71. "People change for two reasons; either they learned a lot or they’ve been hurt too much.” – Unknown
72. "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates
73. “Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you'd like to act.” ― Bob Dylan
74. “Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” ― Simone de Beauvoir
75. “Change is hardest at the beginning, messiest in the middle and best at the end.” ― Robin Sharma
76. “And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves.” ― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
77. “We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” ― John Dryden
78. “Words are where most change begins.” ― Brandon Sanderson
79. “People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t” ― Stephen Fry
80. “What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.” ― Madeleine Albright
81. “If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.” ― Anatole France
82. “People can cry much easier than they can change.” ― James Baldwin
83. “Change almost never fails because it's too early. It almost always fails because it's too late.” ― Seth Godin
84. “People don't change, they just have momentary steps outside of their true character.” ― Chad Kultgen
85. “Every hundred feet the world changes.” ― Roberto Bola?o
86. “Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.” ― Jacob M. Braude
87. “I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.” ― Sylvia Plath
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88. “What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” ― Abraham Maslow
89. “It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.” ― Samuel Beckett
90. “All is flux, nothing stays still.” ― Plato
91. “People don't resist change. They resist being changed.” ― Peter Senge
92. “Sometimes you hit a point where you either change or self-destruct.” ― Sam Stevens
93. “Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.” ― Arundhati Roy
94. “We change the world not by what we say or do, but as a consequence of what we have become.” ― Dr. David Hawkins
95. “The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.” ― Aaron Lauritsen
96. “Bending beats breaking.” ― Betty Greene
97. “The world doesn't change in front of your eyes, it changes behind your back.” ― Terry Hayes
98. “Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor” ― Alexis Carrel
99. “Tides do what tides do–they turn.” ― Derek Landy
100. "The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude." – Oprah Winfrey
101. "Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change." — Confucius
To help you stay motivated, check out this list of 100 inspiration quotes.